


Necromancer's Rise

by AnselaJonla



Series: Prompt fills [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 09:34:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15554793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnselaJonla/pseuds/AnselaJonla
Summary: A fic written for a prompt on the r/WritingPrompts subreddit:A motorcade of armored cars is transporting a reinforced coffin containing a young woman's sleeping body. You are a soldier guarding this coffin...and you are terrified.





	Necromancer's Rise

It's a cold, cloudy winter's day, with brisk winds whipping the detritus of civilisation along the city's streets, but the sweat still drops down my back. My fingers clench tightly on the trigger of my gun as we bounce along the cracked, overgrown surface of the long-abandoned road. I can barely even look at the vehicle I'm meant to be guarding. Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.

Ten years ago this was a thriving city, the third largest in the United Kingdom. Just over four and a half million souls lived in Birmingham when  _She_  awoke. Today there's only the two score in this escort. And  _Her_. Can't forget  _Her_.

A construction company was digging the foundations for a new high-rise office block, including six floors of underground parking for its clients with a little space left over for overflow from the recently expanded Bull Ring. Construction was halted when they found an archaeological site, one much deeper than any that had previously been discovered in the West Midlands. It appeared to be a tomb, although its origins baffled the boffins that were called in to examine it. The writing on it wasn't in any tongue known to man. The designs etched into the stone weren't Roman, or Celtic, or Norse, or any of the other civilisations that had previously existed inside the British Isles. Someone had the absolutely  _genius_  idea to unseal it, to try and find some clues inside.

Oh what a fool that man was. The only consolation is that the idiot egghead was probably one of the first to die in screaming agony. Not the first, obviously. That sort, I'm told, never did their own dirty work. It was probably students, people who had the  _luxury_  of spending their time studying meaningless things, who died first.

And who were first to rise, reanimated by magic that we had no idea even existed.

Millennia ago, when the Great Pyramids were but a distant dream of a Pharaoh yet to be born, the inhabitants of this island could wield powers that we thought were but myths and tales for children. Into this society was born a young girl who discovered that her talents lay in the reanimation of the dead.  _She_  used this affinity to play cruel tricks on  _Her_  noble peers, and eventually  _She_  began to amass an army of the dead to do  _Her_  bidding. A ritual of  _Her_  own devising, using the life of a thousand captive children, made  _Her_ forever immortal.  _She_  swept all who opposed  _Her_  aside,  _Her_  fallen foes swelling  _Her_  own ranks, until the remaining High Sorcerers, the most powerful magic-users in the land, crafted a ritual to stop  _Her_.

Their magic buried  _Her_  deep underground, sealing  _Her_  inside a tomb that would last for thousands of years. It bound this necromancer's prison with the magical potential of all who lived and were yet to be born, until such a time as the seal was broken. And to ensure that it would not be unsealed through the greed of future generations, all mention of this magical civilisation and the powers it once wielded were scoured clean from the land, to pass into the annals of legend and myths of distant gods.

They did not, however, account for the reckless curiosity of man.

Birmingham was devoid of human life within a day of  _Her_  awakening. Nearly five million of the dead poured out to scour the rest of the land clean.

All children of the United Kingdom are taught about  _Her_  rise in training, as we learnt to fight against the dead that roamed the land. As we checked that the magic still flowed strong through the life-linked bombs around our necks, set to detonate the instant our hearts stopped, to deny  _Her_  the ability to add us to  _Her_  armies. As we learnt how to strip and rebuild our guns, from the pistols of children to the rifles of adolescence and adulthood. As those of us born after  _Her_  return learnt by trial and error to use the magic that now flowed through our veins, to each master our own affinities so we could use them in battle.

It took twenty-five long years, and the deaths of countless millions of people across the world, but we eventually cornered  _Her_  in the necropolis that was once London. The two score of this escort are all that remains of the five thousand soldiers, the strongest mages of the British, Commonwealth, and Allied Armies, that were sent to force  _Her_  back into her slumber.  _She_  sent wave after wave of the dead to batter us down.  _Her_  magic tore through our lines like a hot knife through butter. But we won.

 _Her_  coffin resides in the central vehicle of this convoy. Made of ten-inch thick titanium-steel alloy, and inscribed with warding runes, it's designed to hold  _Her_  until  _She_ 's returned to  _Her_  tomb underneath Birmingham. And this time,  _She_  won't be sealed alone. The magic twisting around us, driving us forwards despite our terror, will construct a second mausoleum around  _Her_ , a guarding force to prevent a future civilisation, as ignorant of magic and the immortal necromancer spawned of it as we were, from starting this cycle anew.

I'm to be entombed with the bitch. And I'm terrified that it won't be enough to stop  _Her_  from rising a third time, to finish what  _She_ started.


End file.
